Killers from the Abyss
Killers From the Abyss was the first episode released in River Monsters Season 9, and the first two-hour episode that was not a special since "Amazon Apocalypse" in Season 6. Summary Wade takes on the biggest investigation of his career, solving what happened to over 1,500 passengers of the RMS Laconia, torpedoed in the Mid-Atlantic in 1942. After looking into eye-witness reports, Wade is granted permission to access parts of Ascension Island, the nearest landmass to where the Laconia went down, and had launched B-24 Liberators to attack the U-Boats during the Laconia Incident. Wade fishes near Ascension island, first catching a Skipjack tuna, and then a Dorado. Dorado are powerful predators, but Wade does not believe that they could be responsible for the passengers that were killed during the Laconia Incident. Wade digs up eye-witness reports that tell of strange silvery fish perpetrating the first attacks. Wade mentions one particular account about a man who managed to escape the sinking Laconia, and was dangling his bare feet over the life raft when he felt an excruciating pain, resulting in the prompt removal of his feet, by him, from the water. Wade combines aggression with colour, and suspects the Snoek for drawing first blood. However, Snoek do not live around Ascension Island at the time he was there, so Wade travels to South Africa, where he begins to fish in the sea around Cape Town. His boat is in the way of what looks like a massive storm, so he feels like he must hurry. The sonar in the boat detects a massive school of fish, Wade estimates that it could contain over a thousand, so he casts his line. He is fishing in the vicinity of large seals and potential Snoek, so any fish struggling on the end of a line would be a choice target for these predators. Wade reels in the line quickly, revealing a Snoek on the hook. Wade is convinced that the Snoek were involved in the attack, but French research vessels found victims with strange circular wounds on their bodies. These wounds have been seen on fish frequently in the area, and it appears that there is a small, but aggressive predator in these waters. The name of this fish is the "Cookie Cutter Shark." This shark is usually less than two feet long, but it possesses sharp teeth. Wade concludes that Cookie Cutter Sharks also played their part in the Laconia incident. However, Wade feels like this does not entirely conclude his investigation. After Wade nearly catches a Tiger Shark, he believes that Tiger Sharks must have also been on the scene. However, Wade states that Tiger Sharks do not live in large enough numbers to be entirely responsible. Wade concludes that noise in the water attracts predatory sharks, so he travels to a cove, where he drops food into the water for small fish. Soon, sharks show up on the scene. Wade also notes that there was a huge sonic boom when the super heated metal of the boilers hit the water. Some Sharks may have been attracted to the sound. Wade mentions the Oceanic whitetip Shark, a predator that would have been in the area in large numbers at the time of the Laconia disaster. However, in the 1950s, commercial shark fishing became an industry, and the common Whitetip Reef Shark was put on the endangered list. Wade travels to the Bahamas, where there is still a healthy supply of Oceanic whitetip Sharks. Wade travels in a canoe, and then drops something playing a very low frequency sound into the water. Soon, he is stalked by a lone Whitetip. Wade doubts that a single Whitetip could have played a significant part in the disaster, but before long there is around three sharks stalking Wade. Wade begins to feel less comfortable, because they show interest in the Sound Machine as well as him. Eventually, the sharks depart. Wade believes that the fish he has encountered explain most of the unfortunate passengers, but not entirely all of them. Eye-witnesses report seeing people dragged vertically down into the water by an unknown sea creature. Wade also finds more recent reports of mysterious enormous sharks being hauled up by large ships in this region. Wade is convinced that there is another predator involved, that has the power to drag a person vertically down. Wade joins a team of scientists attempting to catch this enormous animal. Wade is the team's angler. Wade eventually gets a bite, and he attempts to pull the fish towards him. He manages to catch the fish, which is a fourteen-foot Six-Gilled Shark. The Six-Gilled shark is a deep sea predator, and this one weighs close to 1,100 pounds. The scientists tag the shark, and then release it. Wade learns from the scientists that this is the first time a Six-Gilled Shark has ever been tagged in this region. Wade is satisfied that he has caught his largest fish to date, but he is not convinced that a predator that lives thousands of feet beneath the surface could be responsible for the surface-level attacks. The next morning, Wade gets a call from one of the scientists, saying that the shark moved up to near the surface over the night, and returned to the depths in the day. Now, Wade believes that he has found the final predator involved in the Laconia disaster. First the Snoek drew predators like Tiger Sharks and Whitetip Sharks, then the Cookie Cutter Sharks came, attracted by the attention, and finally the Six-Gilled Sharks arrived on the scene. Now, Wade wants to see a Six-Gilled Shark in its own environment. Wade travels to the Cayman Trench, where a homemade submarine has been built. Wade hopes that this can take him to the environment of the Six-Gilled Shark. Despite having a couch in its interior, Wade is still not comfortable with how cramped the Submarine is. The submarine has a pig on the front for bait. Wade and the driver descend to the Black smokers, 2000 feet below the surface, and where the water pressure is 900 pounds per square inch. Here they turn their lights to red, where they wait for a Shark. Sharks cannot see red light. They are precariously placed on a precipice that drops down several more miles. Wade notes that if something were to happen to them here, there would be no one to save them. They wait for several hours watching isopods and other extremely deep sea creatures crawling around. Eventually, they see a Six-Gilled Shark. It circles them a few times, and although it cannot see them, it appears to be able to smell them. It eventually seizes the pig, and departs. After seeing the power of the Six-Gilled Shark, Wade thinks that these predators may have played their part in the Laconia incident, as well as the other large predatory fish. *Note: In the aftershow of the episode, "Volcanic Island Terror", Wade said that while filming this episode, he hooked a Yellowfin tuna that took around six hours to bring in. It was also the longest fight Wade ever had with a fish (The second longest being the Short-tail river stingray in the episode, "Silent Assassin"). Category:Oceanic Category:Episodes Category:Cases Category:Season 9